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Today, they are a joy to watch.
Don’t get us wrong, we’ve been watching them a long time. For seven years on our ship, we saw enough to produce endless romantic speculation. The way they would snap together like magnets, time and again, on the bridge, coming to stand side by side even in the midst of battle. Her hovering touch, his use of her first name, fleeting glimpses of him leaving or coming to a dinner with flowers and candles. And the way he looked at her? That alone could have fueled a million sonnets. We hoped for a happy ending, maybe when we made it home? But it didn’t come.
She became the Vice Admiral and he became the Captain, and it looked like they’d taken different roads. But then, just when we thought all hope was lost...
She risked the wrath of the Admiralty, war with the Romulans, and two separate starships to yank him back from whatever time travel, alt-universe, hell had consumed him. We should have known better than to think a story like theirs was over.
And in spite of the fact that we were spread across the universe we began swapping stories again.
Thank the stars for whatever subroutine made our EMH a gossip, because his description of their lingering hug after Chakotay came back from The Protostar was the best news since that Unimatrix Zero handhold. Slowly, more sightings began to surface – Sam and Naomi saw them huddled together at a restaurant in San Francisco, Celes heard they’d been seen together in a holosuite on DS9, and Tom swore (though it was Tom, so we took it with a grain of salt) that he’d heard a familiar male voice in the background when he’d called the Admiral late one evening. It was all very exciting.
But nothing like today.
Today our Harry is getting married, to Libby no less. Another decade-spanning love story should be the big news of the hour. And we love our Harry, now Lieutenant Commander Kim, but he’s not what has us delightedly whispering amongst ourselves.
“They walked in holding hands!” Jenny Delaney reports.
“He said ‘we’ when he talked about going on a trip to Peru,” Vorik adds. “It’s logical to assume he was referring to the Vice Admiral.” Because apparently, when it comes to these two, even Vulcans gossip.
They are still discreet. There’s lots of Starfleet brass in attendance after all. But finally, finally, if you’re watching for it, and we are, it is there. As we wait for the ceremony, he puts his arm along the back of her chair and his fingers trace a little pattern on the bare skin below her neck. During the ceremony, her hand finds its way to his knee, and doesn’t move. When they dance at the reception there’s a moment where she leans up to whisper something in his ear and her lips brush his jaw for briefest moment. At dinner, as he and The Doctor are giving her gentle grief about her coffee addiction, he calls her “my love.”
And if we thought the way he looked at her before was notable, it’s got nothing on the transparent adoration in his eyes as he tracks her any time she’s away from his side.
“Finally,” we say. “Their happy ending. Our happy ending.”
It is B’Elanna who does our feelings one better however, as she bounces her son on her knee. “Maybe it’s actually a happy beginning,” she says.
Yes, they are a joy to watch.
Here’s to happy beginnings.